Many facets of the practice of chemistry and/or chemical engineering can be reliant upon providing structures or surfaces capable of performing or facilitating separations or reactions and/or providing areas for such separations or reactions to take place. Such structures or surfaces are thus ubiquitous in many R&D and manufacturing settings. Although the desired physical and chemical properties of these shaped bodies can, and will, vary depending on the particular application, there are certain properties that are generally desirable in such shaped bodies regardless of the final application in which they will be utilized.
For example, such shaped bodies will desirably be of high purity and substantially inert so that the shaped bodies themselves will not participate in the separations or reactions taking place around, on or through them in a way that is undesired, unintended, or detrimental. For those shaped bodies for which it is desired to have the components being reacted or separated pass through, or diffuse into, the shaped body, a low diffusion resistance would be advantageous. In certain applications, the shaped bodies are desirably provided within a reaction or separation space, and so they are desirably of sufficient mechanical integrity to avoid being crushed, chipped or cracked during transport or placement. For those shaped bodies desirably utilized as reaction surfaces, high surface area and/or high porosity can be desired, to improve the loading and dispersion of the desired reactants, and also to provide enhanced surface area on which the reactions or separations can take place. Of course, in almost every application, lower cost materials are preferred.
Oftentimes, the desired properties of such shaped bodies can conflict with one another, and as a result, preparing shaped bodies where each desired property is maximized can be challenging. In efforts to meet these challenges, additives or binding agents, have been utilized. However, the use of such agents does not obviate the aforementioned challenge, as the use of such agents can improve one property at the expense of another. Furthermore, in addition to the cost of the agents themselves, the utilization of additives/binding agents to provide shaped bodies with desired properties, may require application of additional steps and the additional time and equipment expense that may be associated therewith.
Shaped porous bodies having desired properties optimized, or even maximized, would represent a vast improvement to the industry and would be expected to provide substantial benefits to end-use products and applications based thereupon. Processes for producing such shaped porous bodies, desirably without the addition of substantial additional expense in time, materials or equipment, would further leverage the benefit provided by such shaped porous bodies.